Excellent Review of Nuzzo's Wolf Point Course

[Craig Van Egmond]

Saw this excellent review of Wolf Point Club on the web.  Congrats to both Mike and Don!


http://www.golfcoursearchitecture.net/Article/Wolf-Point-Club/1465/Default.aspx


Sorry if its already been posted, but I have been out of network. 

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the heads up, Craig.

[Bill_McBride]

Thanks for posting that article, Craig.  I added a few paragraphs to a thread about playing Wolf Point that Will Ellender posted after his visit, but this author much more articulately tells the reader what a great course Wolf Point is.  Mike and Don obviously poured heart and soul into designing, building and maintaining the course, hopefully just the first of more to come - once we get through this blasted bloody recession.

[Craig Van Egmond]

All I know is I can't wait to see this course and I hope it leads to more work by Mike and company.

[K. Krahenbuhl]

Great article.  I think this quote from the final paragraph says a lot...

"not only is it probably the best first course by a modern architect that I have seen (I have not been to Bandon Dunes, perhaps the obvious alternative candidate for this accolade), but it is also a living case study for the future of golf design and construction."

[Bill_McBride]

Great article.  I think this quote from the final paragraph says a lot...

"not only is it probably the best first course by a modern architect that I have seen (I have not been to Bandon Dunes, perhaps the obvious alternative candidate for this accolade), but it is also a living case study for the future of golf design and construction."

Fill in the blanks:

Mackenzie is to Alwoodley as Nuzzo is to Wolf Point as __________ is to _____________ or ____________ is to ________________.

[Lou_Duran]

Who wrote the article?  Was Bandon Dunes Kidd's first course?  Though I am a big fan of BD, the site and its surroundings, at least as much as the architecture, sets it apart.

Wolf Point is all about gca and hard, smart work.  The site is totally unremarkable.  The creek mentioned in the article, a couple wooded areas, and the hollering wind are its only natural features favorable to golf.  I hope its proud owner knows how fortunate he was to have found Mike who in turn brought in the highly capable, hard working Don Mahaffey.  As much fun as Wolf Point is to play, the story behind its creation is as equally compelling.  I don't know the details of Doak's scale, but I extended my trip from CA and drove close to 800 miles just to play it solely on Mike's assertion that it was "really good".  It is actually much better than he lets on and I look forward to making the drive again in the not too distant future.

[Rob Rigg]

Wolf Point is clearly what great GCA is all about. Being able to turn a flat site into something truly remarkable just shows how committed Mike and Don were to the project and how deeply they thought about using subtle nuances in creating strategy on every hole.

It would be great to see what Mike can do on another project - WP is a very high bar to set your first time out.

I found it kind of interesting that someone writing for a golf course architecture site/magazine has not been to Bandon Dunes - I hope they get a chance to broaden their gca appreciation there in the near future.

[K. Krahenbuhl]

It would be great to see what Mike can do on another project - WP is a very high bar to set your first time out.

I'm looking forward to the practice facility that he will be working on down the street from my house.  I wish it was a new course, but it will be nice to have nonetheless. 

From Mike's blog...

http://nuzzogolfcoursedesign.blogspot.com/2009/04/busy-on-new-summer-project.html

[Michael Blake]

Kyle,

More here on Mike's plans at Matt Swanson's golf school:

http://nuzzogolfcoursedesign.blogspot.com/2009/05/clearing-fairway-at-swansons.html

Great idea.  I wish my local practice facility had 'fairway corridors' instead of just one wide open space.

[Jason McNamara]

Is that the new location by Champions?  I used to work literally around the corner from that spot.  (Used to be a par 3 course.)

[Mike_Cirba]

Much deserved congratulations to both Mike and Don...I can't wait to visit there someday, hopefully soon.

[John Foley]

Craig - Thanks for the post.

Don't know if there is a better story on GCA than this one.

Good guy goes out and hiots a Grand Slam!!

[Ben Sims]

Ditto John. What an amazing first layout.  Of course, us Aero guys tend to be detailed...

If some of you haven't seen Mike Nuzzo's "An Ideal Golf Course" Blog.  Check it out right now.  It has many pics of Wolf Point and goes through a hole-by-hole evolution of the course.

An interesting note....#7 was going to be a "bottle" hole.  The sketch looked phenomenal, but its current iteration is great too.

http://nuzzogolfcoursedesign.blogspot.com/

[Tom_Doak]

John F:  I am a fan of Mike N.'s, and Don's, too, and a home run in your first at-bat is good stuff -- but you can only hit a Grand Slam when the bases are loaded.

I find it strange that they put no byline on the article, especially since it is written in the first person.

[Peter Pallotta]

I've said this too many times already, but what I think is most wonderful about Wolf Point is that Mike and Don refused to buy into the rhetoric about what makes for a 'great site' or the conventional wisdom regarding the challenges of a 'flat site'.   It's Texas - flat is very much at home there.  If the old Scots hadn't been Scots but Texans, people would've been bulldozing sites flat for the last 100 years....

Peter

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you very much for posting Craig.
I wish I could have a huge outing there.
I'm lucky I get to play from time to time.

Don and I did hit a homer - thank you.
It is worth studying (different) from all perspectives - design, construction and maintenance.
And it is different because it fit our client best.

Adam Lawrence, the author, came to visit for Superbowl weekend - we had a very good time with one other treehouse fella - see below.
They actually got the very, very rare treat of standing on the 12th tee at dusk - I'm lucky to have stood there during dozens of sunsets.  I always finish up my photo shoots there.
Later that night we had the bar to ourselves watching the game.
Why hasn't he been to Bandon?  Yes he should and will go, but he does lives in the UK.




Kyle,
Stop by one day and I can show you what is going on around the corner at Matt Swanson's.
I hit a few balls yesterday between the trees, it is a whole different feel.
You can see that from several of the locations you get all kinds of looks.
The pines are tall and you can see some of my vegetative inspiration here:
http://www.mnuzzo.com/Swanson/

Jason are you still in the area?
That, now gone, par 3 course - was labeled the par 3 course that no one played.
A beginner course that was too hard for a beginner - forced carries of 180 yards to tiny greens that slope away.
No room to draw or fade - brutal - i never did play it as it looked so unfun.

[Jason McNamara]

Jason are you still in the area?
That, now gone, par 3 course - was labeled the par 3 course that no one played.
A beginner course that was too hard for a beginner - forced carries of 180 yards to tiny greens that slope away.
No room to draw or fade - brutal - i never did play it as it looked so unfun.

Yeah, I went by a couple times after work when I was up there.  No real pitch & putt holes, more like 150 yds on avg, one really nasty 200-yd hole that was all carry over water.  I agree beginners would be miserable.

Oh, and tight doesn't begin to describe how narrow it was.  Yikes.

One positive: it was a good venue for anyone planning a trip the GB&I, because the low-hanging net atop the driving range meant you could only hit knock-down 5-irons.  :-)

That's no more than 6 blocks from Champions - Matt should get good traffic there.

[Carl Nichols]

Mike and Don:
Congrats to you both.  It's been very interesting to watch the project develop, and I hope you get many more in the future!

[Don_Mahaffey]

John F:  I am a fan of Mike N.'s, and Don's, too, and a home run in your first at-bat is good stuff -- but you can only hit a Grand Slam when the bases are loaded.

Tom,
Your right, someone does need to get on base to hit a grand slam and in this case my boss loaded the bases...a lot.
A few years ago I started a thread that basically said the client is the real difference maker in great projects. I don't know if you agree with that or not, but in this case he gave Mike and I all the freedom we needed to build him a great course. I don't need to tell you what its like as a PM when you can shake a guys hand and back it up 100%. No accounting office BS, just you do the work and I'll pay you the day you’re done. Everyone who worked for us on this project would work for us again in a heartbeat because there was never any BS going on. We had complete control over what was done, how it was done, and when people got paid.

In this day and age where "good business" seems to be all about how long you can string someone out and how much you can screw with someone, it was awesome to run a project where there was absolutely none of that crap.

This is a project worthy of study not just because of the golf course that got built, but the manner with which it was done.

[Charlie Goerges]

I like the fact that local farmers did some (all?) of the excavating for the lake. Why don't we see this type of situation (i.e. local people with the necessary equipment doing the job rather than a big construction company) more often?

[Mike Nuzzo]

Thank you Don
It was incredible how unaccustomed many were to working without BS
They would come at us very wary and gunshy waiting to get hurt.

Charlie
Not everyone can do it - it was a lot of work to manage the farmers that excavated the lake - they were the shovel.
It might even be more expensive depending on how they're managed.

[Ben Sims]

Mike,

Thanks for replying about #7 at Wolf Point.  I fear i was unsuccessful getting that picture to you last night.  Thanks to the latest thread, here's another try.

[Lou_Duran]

OT-  Regarding the practice facility, is the far boundary approximately 250 yards from the back of the tee?  What is the orientation (pointing north?)?  What type of netting will be used?  Are the balls reduced distance?  Will the tee be mostly grass, mats, or a combination?  I am assuming that greens are targets and the holes not be playable.   

[Mike Nuzzo]

Lou
South West is the line of flight.
The fairways will encourage hitting diagonally across the range which is up to 300 yards deep.
Balls = PV1s
Netting = smaller holes than PV1s 
The tee is 100% grass with some mats in the back
He'll be able to bring the little linksters out for their certification / to play the holes
Cheers